(no subject)

For some reason, the last couple KB of the Warcraft update are not downloading to save anything. It is kind of making me crazy and has been going on for half an hour. I really dislike the downloading system, I do. In other news, I think I've managed to sleep more than twenty four hours between Monday night and Wednesday morning. Very exciting. I feel significantly more human.

take a look around

My car's clock is about six minutes behind the clocks at work. But I made it on time, despite my brush with steely death. The traffic lights were out near the office, and no one is able to behave themselves at a four way blinking red light. Despite the fact that the Tahoe had to pass me when pulling up in the lane to my left, they completely forgot I was there, and tried to move into my lane. The car was about two inches from hitting my side mirror, and I was already bracing myself for the impact and praying they wouldn't knock me into the car on my right. Scary.

My grandparents are coming into town on Sunday, which coincidentally is my birthday. I am hoping my aunt Tricia will also be along, as I haven't seen her in ages. There will be Luby's for lunch. I did not organize this, but I am glad. I've been at a loss as to scheduling anything for my birthday this year, after last few years. Since Mike's birthday is twelve days after mine, we're going out to dinner inbetween sometime to celebrate both. I also have dinner with my father on Thursday at the ever delicious Mesa Ranch.

Last night Mike tried to teach me how to count things in binary. I can do up to five reliably now without looking at my fingers. While I'm not entirely sure this skill will make or break my resume, it is oddly useful for strange things.

I've been thinking about career and all those sorts of things. I confess I'm slightly jealous of friends who are finishing their graduate education, or selling their first novels, or just advancing in their own paths. Last night at dinner I realized that I have been without direction for years now, and that at least part of my discontent with the world as is stems from feeling aimless. When I was much younger, I had a Purpose and an idea about what I wanted to do. In the past seven years, that drive has disappated and I've been left wondering how to fill that gap leftover from childhood ambition.

Mostly, I entertain the idea of quitting my job to bake pies, make shiny objects and write novels. None of that comes with health insurance though and given my history health insurance is a necessary evil. One day I will have to replace this liver after all. But I have actually started thinking about doing this.

In other news, I need to sell my wedding dress. I've realized hanging onto it serves no good purpose whatsoever. Ebay is probably the way to go, but I figure I should tell livejournal land too in case someone here needs a wedding dress on the cheap. I need to measure everything, and find a picture or take a picture of it, but it is a damn pretty dress. I just can't keep it. (Also, it is too tight in the chest now.)

memorial

One of the messages in my Yahoo mail this morning was from Gather, and asked to know how I intended to address Memorial Day. I have been thinking about this all morning without any good answer. I always joke that my birthday tends to fall on or around Memorial Day, so I get an extra long weekend. Advertising for the holiday focuses on barbecues, picnics and family outings not dissimilar to Labor Day and July 4th. It is rare that I see anyone actually address what Memorial Day signifies.

I was thining about this while reading the NY Times. Every day, I read the news, and it seems that every day another soldier dies over there in the desert. Every day, there is some new and inventive way to put together or hide IEDs. In the search for the missing soldiers, other people die. It is hard not to wonder what the hell is going on anymore, if anyone has any idea what we are doing.

If I believed that we could do something concrete and good in Iraq, if I believed we were fighting a war for a cause other than Haliburton's bottom line, I could support it. I don't even know what to make of this. I read the news and I wonder if there is any point to this anymore. In the beginning when people would talk about how this would be my generation's Vietnam, that comparison was dismissed as too dramatic. I have to wonder though. It seems more and more apt every day.

I think about Bob, and how close he came to dying in Baghdad. He's walking around, scarred but alive. His friend was just ahead of him in the truck and didn't make it. A boy I grew up with died, and a boy I went to high school with died. I have the feeling that no one is going to get out of this alive.

(And yes, dozens and hundreds of Iraqis die as well. I fully recognize that, but it isn't what I'm going to talk about right now. Please don't mistake that for a lack of sympathy for the massive scale of death and devastation suffered by ordinary people.)